A recipe for living with cancer.

In the mass of paperwork and information ones receives during chemotherapy is a pesky checklist: drink fluids, eat, ,take meds, nail care, skin care, bowel care, fatigue, avoid this, avoid that, eat lightly, blah blah blah oh…and if your temp goes over 100 degrees call your doctor’s office immediately and get to the hospital. That last one is the one I desperately wanted to avoid at ALL costs, the very last place you want to be when on chemo is in the hospital, you can catch things and get sick there!

Sunday night our wonderful friends Marge and Rich came in from New Jersey to help out. Tom was going away and they agreed to come and take care of me during my bad week. They live on the Jersey shore so the timing was perfect, they could sit out the storm at our house at the same time, two birds one stone.

Sunday was a tough day during which I could barely manage to get out of bed, but Taxetere comes with fatigue so I was not concerned. Tom was concerned and got out an old thermometer…100.6, CRAP. Long and the short of it I ended up in the ER at 7:30 on Sunday night with an IV of saline in my arm awaiting the results of blood tests. My white counts were high, infection, but there were no symptoms or indications where or what the infection might be. They admitted me and at 2 am I was poked and prodded and examined by a doc and then at 3 am I was drained of copious amounts of blood to see if they could “grow” anything, and at 4 am they game me a broad spectrum antibiotic through the IV. By the by I never had a fever in the hospital, none of the 14 times they took it along with my blood pressure. Think we need a new thermometer??

Oh yes I was getting rest and healthy in the hospital, ha!

By 8:30 am the attending physician came in and said, “can’t find any infection, must be a blip, a virus, and your white count is coming back down so how about we send you home.” I was home by 11 am.

My goal was to get through chemo therapy without making a visit to the ER. I didn’t reach that goal but only 16 hours in the hospital, that will do!!

One more infusion, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

Thanksgiving will be very special this year, I will be giving thanks for life, for family, friends and relations and for only spending 16 hours in the hospital during chemo therapy…only one more to go!!!